Feat. such classics as "wind and solar need big batteries" without a clue about huge recent and near-term expected BESS deployment! And such bangers as "But the IEA forecasts for O&G" from an energy economist (per bio) who clearly isn't familiar w/ IEA's history of forecasting ~0 renewables growth!
goes double for solar whataboutism - there are impact issues but there is also a type of commenter whose only interaction with enviro impact issues is to be like “solar panels corrupt the soil” or w/e
Well, GCF folks are denying two well documented things: climate change and resource depletion. So it's not like anything they say is going to make sense.
the slow creeping horrified realization that I might have to get back on Linkedin to talk to climate people has been one of the most soul-rattling developments of the new age of social media for me
It's a terrible new age. I have resisted wasting precious seconds of my life explaining the joke to literal-minded men here so that's progress, I guess
Might depend on your scene. If I mention electrification, I'll invariably get a loud, overweight white man and SFH builder yelling "listen now boy, I've been doing this for 150 years and if God didn't want us to use oil, he wouldn't have put it in the dirt for us to use".
that guy does have a point though. if God wanted us to have cheap clean energy there’d probably be like a huge flaming ball of gas in the sky putting out free power all the time. smh
My favorite form of that is the oil spill apologists. There's a tiktokker named @zombiewells that has been documenting abandoned but producing oil wells in the Permian Basin and the number of comments like "that radioactive oily salt water spraying out of the ground is natural!" drives me crazy.
The other part is folks too old for FB who just repost Simon Sinek type pro-corpo propaganda: "these 3 tricks will transform your career and turn you into the next Steve Jobs", or "this is how spends his day". But maybe my feed needs a cleanse?
Well, no. Unless you think the International Energy Agency are selling oil and gas. Check out their forecast for oil and gas use in their Net Zero pathway.
Half right, unfortunately. The US's truck-based logistics system as well as mechanized ag and construction will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future. This of course can be dealt with, but in timelines measured in years or decades. This shouldn't prevent other moves to green the grid, ofc.
It takes energy to produce EV. And to produce the electricity they use.
Most of this is still fossil fuel based energy which is a shame. The US was on its way to alternative energy when Carter was in office. Then Reagan tore down the solar panels. We lost 30 years of research.
You are missing my point. If you want to feel better about an EV remember that the tailpipe is just moved to the energy supplier from the car itself. And it’s a push when it comes to fissile files to mine the parts and build the vehicles.
Eventually certainly. But within the next decade I think we'll still need fossil oil, but again, only a miniscule amount compared to what is needed for fuel.
There are gaps that are very hard to fill with present technology.
Using Ford as an example, the F150 Lightning can pull out a stump. But they can’t yet electrify an F350. Many F350s are vanity rides, but many are legit work trucks supporting infrastructure.
Now Ford is easy to pick on based on some recent statements from folks near the top, but Ford engineering has worked at making their large trucks cleaner for a very long time. Even 15 years ago everyone at the advanced research lab would tell you climate science is real and serious.
How many people who own trucks need to pull stumps out? Not many. And if there were one truck in town to pull out that stump instead of one in every parking spot, well. We'd sure be better off, huh?
That is an issue of consumer behavior/reg. I’m on the technical side of reduction. If I could get a bunch of folks to get electric scooters, the reduction would be huge.
My point is simply that the work trucks we need to keep the electrical infrastructure up are hard to electrify at this point.
In Finland, you need a special permit to have a big truck. Small dicked men can’t “roll coal”. But without that regulatory support, and consumers being unwilling to make big changes, we have to do what we can with the tech.
Yes, I was boiling it down to one example. But these work cases are complex. We’ve had some success electrifying heavy equipment at ports that has worked out well - but you need a catalyst to get the private entity to make the massive capital investment for the switch.
I suspect that actual work trucks, ones associated with businesses that are used to make money, will start the EV transition before the vanity full ton pickup drivers do...
When operating cost is actually figured into the cost and the math is actually done, they'll go with the cheaper options.
Yeah, certainly seeing that here. Business watching the pennies really want to transition. They're also pushed by clean air regulations in cities. Seeing electric taxis, delivery vehicles, bin lorries, buses, all were diesel till recently.
Friend owns a roll off business, and he wants to go electric because the math works for his use case. But there aren't any trucks to buy... (Tesla semi is bigger than he needs, and you can't even buy that yet with out a pre-order from years ago)
We are trying to squeeze every bit of efficiency we can. CARB and the EPA are finally taking a tougher line so all the OEMs are highly incentivized (at least until people let a 2nd Trump term blow that up), but real work truck type applications outside of dense urban settings are a challenge.
Not entirely. There really isn't a concentrated energy source that's a good replacement for oil and gas yet, nor any infrastructure around any potential replacements, and that transition probably WILL take decades
We could make that transition significantly faster if we actually wanted to. There's no reason to let market forces drive it. It needs to be mandated and the govt needs to be behind it, directing and driving it.
At least for power generation, that is deeply untrue. DECADES OLD nuclear reactor tech that is modular, passively safe [literally physically unable to enter meltdown, tested in the real world], and can recycle existing waste [from reactor to DU] for most of its fuel. Plugs right into existing grid.
Electrifying and fixing up our rail system would go a long way towards fixing that. It's entirely doable if we had the will. As for international shipping, small nuclear reactors were *made* for ships - if we can have a nuclear aircraft carrier, we can have a nuclear container ship.
We could consume less things though. We don't HAVE to keep going at the pace we're going. Renewable sources are enough to sustain our lives, just not the kind of lives we have rn.
I work in ag. I'm part of the organising committee for a conference on new industry innovations.
And no, not all of them require fossil fuels, as I've already pointed out, we just currently use them but alternatives exist already. Transition could be starting right now.
Tbh they're enough to sustain my life and probably your life, I doubt almost anybody in these replies are big enough consumers to even be impacted by a less petrochemical fueled future
freight rail is ripe for national mass electrification here in the US, so domestic freight wouldn't be as heavily impacted as international goods. the internet is a big consumer of electricity, but in a renewable future internet projects can be good as dump loads.
Natural Gas we will need for a long time. There’s no quick way to replace the largest share of energy production. Nuclear is pricey and takes forever to come online. Solar and Wind are low capacity and variable without large batteries. New technologies like Fusion are probably many decades away.
One thing that would help with natural gas is getting everyone switched over to heat pumps and convection stoves. But since the gas industry has been so good at selling people on the idea that gas is the best way to cook, that's going to be a really hard sell.
The texts are correct and I see it that way.
For me the visual representation is misogynistic and I think it would be worth choosing more neutral images.
By the way, this applies to all the memes with this subject that I have seen so far.
Not a problem Robyn, all these in jokes can be tricky - this is a joke that uses a meme format featuring the Beckhams, where David B persists on pestering Victoria when she claims to have grown up struggling
Wow. All the replies are assuming you’re just some hipster brat with no concept of practicality. I just wanted to ask about plastic…and how much it’s going to cost to clean it up. 🤷♂️
One thing I've noticed since we started using "green bins" is how much my garbage production has decreased. But that has drawn my attention to how much soft plastic we are throwing away since we can't recycle it here!
Plastic recycle is real though, isn't it?
9% of vehicles sold in 2023 were BEVs or PHEV.
That's 9% less gas we need to power those cars... supply and demand, 9% less gas means a 9% price cut at the pump.
9% cheaper gas means less motivation to stop buying gas.
Natural gas is the most common source of grid electricity in the states so it’s not a clean 9% reduction in fossil fuels. We’re also polluting 10x more fresh water for each EV when compared to internal combustion vehicles.
EVs don't have a lot of other environmental pollutants that ICE cars have tho, catalytic converters can't catch everything. do kinda hope we figure out better battery materials though.
The projections are projections the historical data is historical data...
Incase anyone else is confused 2024 and 2025 are largely in the future and we've not generated electricity in the future, sorry if it was confusing to anyone what "estimates going out to 2025" meant.
Comments
*uh
If you want to know why I'm an EV skeptic, ask, but I'm not gonna be a dick every time somebody mentions their EV.
there’s a flavor of it that is used to shut down talk about climate action IMO
when you’re using it to prop up “gas cars forever,” and at the same time talking about pollution - that’s disingenuous and extremely bad vibes
I’m so not ready
hose em out
Changes is terrorism!
Most of this is still fossil fuel based energy which is a shame. The US was on its way to alternative energy when Carter was in office. Then Reagan tore down the solar panels. We lost 30 years of research.
It's just (cheaper/more profitable) to pump it out of the ground.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15174
Using Ford as an example, the F150 Lightning can pull out a stump. But they can’t yet electrify an F350. Many F350s are vanity rides, but many are legit work trucks supporting infrastructure.
My point is simply that the work trucks we need to keep the electrical infrastructure up are hard to electrify at this point.
Use case matters, not just size; how long does it need to run, what duty cycle, weight limitations, hills, etc...
Private vehicles though, people buy those based off a fantasies of how they might be used, someday.
When operating cost is actually figured into the cost and the math is actually done, they'll go with the cheaper options.
Friend owns a roll off business, and he wants to go electric because the math works for his use case. But there aren't any trucks to buy... (Tesla semi is bigger than he needs, and you can't even buy that yet with out a pre-order from years ago)
Tesla is vaperware. Ford has moved a ton of their best researchers into batteries, but F150 is the largest they can build.
The tech already exists.
It might not be readily for sale in the format needed, but it is clearly there.
The problem isn't the engineering.
It's not impossible to do at all. It's just going to take decades.
Because there is a gap between us currently using it for ag equipment and needing it for ag equipment, if that’s your meaning.
These are not inconsiderable and all of them currently require fossil fuels.
Alternatives can absolutely exist but it takes time to develop them and time to deploy them and time to build up the infrastructure.
You should visit a farm and see how they operate.
And no, not all of them require fossil fuels, as I've already pointed out, we just currently use them but alternatives exist already. Transition could be starting right now.
Also fertiliser. A LOT of natural gas is used for fertiliser production.
In fact, on the fertiliser side, there are options ready for deployment right now that would be on-farm N production from renewables.
That it isn't doesn't mean it can't be.
For me the visual representation is misogynistic and I think it would be worth choosing more neutral images.
By the way, this applies to all the memes with this subject that I have seen so far.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/david-beckhams-be-honest-thank-you
https://fb.watch/pGDRMUIN-H/
Plastic recycle is real though, isn't it?
some glass gets recycled. lots of metals. plastics typically just end up in a landfill, incinerated, or stored in big flammable stockpiles.
9% of vehicles sold in 2023 were BEVs or PHEV.
That's 9% less gas we need to power those cars... supply and demand, 9% less gas means a 9% price cut at the pump.
9% cheaper gas means less motivation to stop buying gas.
One drop of oil contaminates 1000L of water.
As for the grid, EIA consistently underestimates the growth of renewable, but here is there estimate going out to the not "decades" away date of 2025.
Decades are a long time and things are changing fast.
Incase anyone else is confused 2024 and 2025 are largely in the future and we've not generated electricity in the future, sorry if it was confusing to anyone what "estimates going out to 2025" meant.
At some point the simplicity of "supply and demand" will break down to more complicated economics...
And then there are fossil fuels that aren't transportation related...
And there is consideration for infrastructure...